Home > New Study Shows Once Again How "Climategate" Emails Were Distorted

New Study Shows Once Again How "Climategate" Emails Were Distorted

At the height of the manufactured "Climategate" controversy, distortions of an email from a top climate scientist made it all the way to one of the leading Sunday shows. But a recent study re-confirms what that scientist was actually saying -- that much of recent heat has been trapped deep in the ocean.

In 2009, a batch of emails[1] was stolen from the University of East Anglia. In one of the emails, which skeptics quickly took out of context[2], Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, lamented the "travesty" that "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment." Trenberth was actually[3]referring[4] to gaps in our "observing system" that make it difficult to say where short-term energy -- or heat -- is going, not copping to a lack of long-term climate change, as some claimed[2]. In the email, Trenberth alluded to research suggesting that the "missing" heat might be sequestered deep in the ocean.

For some media, none of this mattered. In a November 2009 appearance on ABC's This Week, conservative columnist George Will suggested[5] Trenberth's email showed that "global warming has stopped," and that since climate science is "a complicated business," we "shouldn't wager these trillions" on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

But a recent study[6] published in the journal Nature Climate Change found that the ocean has in fact played a "key role" in absorbing recent heat, which "strengthens our confidence in the robustness of our climate models." The findings echo the conclusions of a paper[7] co-authored by Trenberth himself as well as findings[8] published in the journal Physics Letters A in late 2012, all indicating that climate change continues apace[9].

Recent analyses by Media Matters show that the "Climategate" episode was typical of the way the influential Sunday shows favor political spin over scientific fact. On the rare occasion Sunday shows covered climate change between 2009 and 2012, not a single scientist[10] or climate expert was part of the discussion. In addition, every politician who discussed climate change on the Sunday shows in 2012 was a Republican:

Examining trends more broadly[11], the Sunday shows have hosted more Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and progressives. In this environment, honest appraisals of science are rare, and commentators like George Will fit right in.